Four Poets Series
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Transcript of Four Poets Series
8/4/2019 Four Poets Series
1/21
Bruce Curley
poetslife@gmail.com
poetslife.blogspot.com
retained
Poetry pulled from the Four Poets Series submission.
a dream of love
we make love-----
and all
the pent-up power
within her
is unleashed
and I
am swept past
great cities
that came and went
armies that changed maps
and prophets
who threw out the call
until finally
crystalline figures
line the dwelling
and I
am totally in aweof her shape
and strength
I
who won herfrom her father
and brothers
in a fight
that almost
cost my life
I
who had
some part
in the children
who burst forth
from her
mailto:poetslife@gmail.commailto:poetslife@gmail.commailto:poetslife@blogspot.commailto:poetslife@blogspot.commailto:poetslife@blogspot.commailto:poetslife@gmail.com8/4/2019 Four Poets Series
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I
who never
quite
comprehend her
even realize
that right now
she consumes me
she absorbs
my strength and life
and determine
what direction
they take
I follow her
deep into space
past galaxies
and years
to glimpse
beyond
life and thoughtour destiny
lived now
lived before
lived tomorrow
all as one
for this knowledge ------I follow.
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Of Your Earthen Body
This water gains power
and flows full,
increasing in pressureUntil it runs into
The forest.................., the dam..................
...............the massive dike.
The pressure builds ------------
And this life giving
water
pushes and slams
Seeks some final release
until it can no longer
be contained
inside.
And nature demands
her satisfaction
and pulls the waves
with a full-bodied moonThat y..a..n..k..s the water
through
the vacuum.
It is here life lives
here the soul dances
here evolution rules
Until, there is no quiet.
There is no peace.
There is only the answer,
"Because there is no other!"
To my eternal question, "WHY!"
"AAAAAUUUAAAGHGHGHGHGHG!!!"
I scream in surrender
As the seed-bearing water
overflows the dam,
enters the fertilevalley,
And embeds silently
In the reservoir
Of your earthen body.
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The Day After
I awaken......
.....in vague stirrings....
...of dreams...
Was there......
.......who handled me clean?
In the nights remembrance....
.....sounds of streams....
My strength was dismantled.......
.....beam....by....beam.
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Eamons Poem
Kicking your mother
from inside the liquid universe of the womb...
I feel so crippled and broken when considering
I have so much to teach you
and only the remaining lifetime to do so.
It is hopeless, really, except these two gems
that came down from a long, long line
of men and women who survived centuries of Vikings
whose barbarity was only surpassed
by the neighbor invader who considered genocide
by the rule of law such a jolly good adventure
and stole all the food in the very middle
of the famine of all famines.
Through it all, your ancestors survived
tenaciously creative and green as mosson the back of a stone on the gentle Shannon river
and these two gems skip across that great river
to the Delaware where once, when wondering
of ancestral roots I asked my father,"Dad, what is it to be American?"
"Work!" "What?" I asked.
"Work!" he repeated. "Your grandfather worked.
I worked. You'll work." "That's all?"
"That's all." he answered.
"Then what is it to be Irish?""Hilarity!" He didn't skip a beat again.
"Hilarity!" You gotta make 'em laugh!"
So there it is, Eamon Patrick.
If God takes me before I get to teach you
all you need to know, let these two words suffice:
work and hilarity.
Work and hilarity saved your people
over centuries of warfare, pestilence, invasion,
slavery, defeat, and famine and eventually defeated
the greatest power on earth so I could write you this poem.
Work and hilarity can carry you to the universe
and to other planets and when you find
a particularly hard planet, name it "Work"
and when you find an especially funny planet,
name it "Hilarity."
No matter what the planet or year,
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work and hilarity are in your genes
as am I, and all of my dreams.
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My True Home
Just
this morningI awoke
so in love with you
that inside
a cloud BURST
balloon-like
to lift me high above
the city lights
over highways
and country roads
to an oak cabin
in the woods
where by a fireof apple and peach tree
I laid my head
against your lap
and found theremy true home.
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The Life Cycle
A small boy
is carried
from a car
asleep.
His father,
tenderly,
transports the child
from car to house.
Years later,
when the boy
carried the father
gently to the grave,
and remembered
powerful arms,
carrying
him once,
from somewhere,
to somewhere,the life cycle --
was complete.
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Words Never Die
When they ask you at school,
"And what does your father do?"
Tell them he is a craftsman,
A craftsman of fine words.
A craftsman in the Medieval sense.
A man who takes pride in sculpting
Completed poems out of a vast quarry
Of known but inartistically used language.
And when they say,"But isn't that a rather unproductive
And silly occupation for a full grown man?"
Say to them back:
"No. His words may survive intact,
While your father's money is spent,
And your father's property is divided,
And your father's corporation is absorbed,
And your father's wife grows old and dies.
But words cannot be spent, divided, absorbed or die.
Words never die; only the people who poorly use them."
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Mid-Night Milk Run
Ladies,
Beware
of mentoo willing
to go
for a gallon
of milk at night.
Such time
allows
copious
amounts of time
to hand the bookie
or the dope dealer
or the other womanor any number
of temptations
family money
or the pathto your
mans heart.
So when he returns
with that gallon of milk
always check it twice:
Once to make sure
all the creamhasnt been skimmed
from the top;
And once to make
absolutely sure
both he and the milk
are still pure and white.
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The Last Rose
The last rose of the season
remains uncut on the rose bush
in the unnoticed corner of the yard
by the crumbling yellow pine fence.
I could, it is true, cut it
and bring it to you, as before;
Or simply snip it and place it
in the Waterford vase in the kitchen...
but it is the end of the season.
This ruined Fall could soon be Winter.
The days with no talk could be weeks
Until the weeks are years, and divorce.
No, that rose will remain where it is.When it dies, its stem attaches to roots
That are strong in minerals, dirt, water.
And Spring has so much renewal to give.
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forces women control men's lives by
there are forces
that erupt,
tear apart,spill out,
emerge,
and reerupt,
in vast spaces.....
vast spaces
of no entrance
or exit
vast interior spaces
surrounded
by no exteriors
souls
within bodies
within soulswithin bodies
spaces
that exist
within
larger
than galaxies
unexplored
spaces to be entered
hauntingly,
cautiously,
for fear
of no return
spaces
where life
determines life
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within these places
there are forces
quite unknowable
whose only
manifestation
is a woman's lovethe birth of a child
forces men
can touch
but never
realize
forces women
control
men's lives by
which menas many times ask
will never
know
why
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The Comedians Choice
Two Comedians pummeled an audience with jokes.
They jabbed at their collective neurosis.
Swung wildly at their latent fears.
Then kicked them right in their lifestyles.
After the round was over,
The comedians returned to a corner table
Filled with beautiful women and booze
And sat there nervously trying to calm their anxiety.
Sitting there,
With a choice between the women, the anxiety and the booze,Both men raised their fists to sup their glasses dry,
Ordered doubles, and tapped their